Dead reddit theory

Random Rant:
I feel like reddit died after they banned all the "unmoderated" communities. All the posts became sanitized. Now reddit is adding AI and streaks and NFTs to keep people on a platform that has no more content.

What is the 99.99 stuff? NFT ? Avatar?

You forgot the "woah there partner" vpn block page

Both, I believe. I haven't used reddit for a while, but when I was on there and they were selling NFTs, they were both avatars (more specifically, a combination of outfit pieces you could mix and match with other pieces from other NFT and non-NFT avatars) and a collectible at once.

I honestly don't have much of a problem with how they did NFTs as avatars. If you want to monetize your platform in a way that doesn't paywall any actual features or meaningfully impact the user experience, go for it. But they really started to go hog wild on it and promoted it so persistently that it felt like you were being made to care about a profile picture you probably wouldn't have remembered you even had otherwise.

Reddit is really the only online place that embraced NFTs and maintained an ecosystem with them. It's a small ecosystem, but they use them in all their absurdly nihilistic glory.

i noticed the unmoderated communities banned a while ago and didn't realize that was a recent change. The ones I noticed were pretty obscure. I'm using old.reddit.com while it still works so haven't seen much issue with AI and NFT's, at least so far. (I don't post but I still lurk). Most annoying recent change was they shut down the PM system in favor of their shitty chat system.

Reddit is run by evil and ill-intentioned people but it is fairly well executed in terms of keeping user engagement. Lemmy by comparison is, at least for now, nowhere near as lively. Lemmy has much better intentions but I think its execution made mistakes. If I were king of Lemmy, I'd reorganize its software and protocols in the hope of helping it run at bigger scale. But, it's still early days.

Partner or pardner?

Reddit died long ago, we are just flies tipping on it’s rotting corpse

Since everyone knows it is pardner, it is just assumed that we will automatically do the translation in our heads:-P

Reddit died imo when they limited API calls for app developers who made incredible 3rd party apps for the platform. Maybe theyve since fixed it, I wouldnt know since I felt cheated having supported baconreader and boost for their hard work in making the reddit exerience feel so premium. I tried the official reddit app and It was buggy garbage at the time. So IMO they pushed away a good chunk of their userbase even before the whole politicapocolypse, bann waves, community removals, etc.

While lemmy is not a perfect replacement in terms of numbers. I feel that every upvote and comment has more meaning here. People here are generally more productive and insightful. It makes me wonder how much bot traffic reddit had prior to the changes. Selfishly I kind of hope lemmy stays where it is in terms of popularity. You all seem generally really cool and It would be hard to find the real ones In the sea of reddit-esque nonsense.

"Reddit Pro"?

I recently checked out the front page out of curiosity. It was really weak, meme wise, and content wise, i didn't scroll more than 2 pages. I understand that the niche communities are the best part but there isn't anything enticing to me there anymore.

Ironically I saw this ad last night.

Can't up vote you harder or enough times.

Have my love ️

Reddit has been on a slow, steady downward trajectory for over a decade. However, it was the rampant engagement bots nagging me with inane questions that drove me away. That, and overzealous moderation deleting comments and dishing out temporary bans for the lamest reasons. Reddit used to be the place where smart and funny people hung out and shared. Now it's just another bland social media site trying to wring the greatest profit out the unwashed masses.

For the professional shitposter.

Yeah I also hope Lemmy doesnt get more popular. This is a good group.

I was a daily redditor since mid-2011, but I had no issue dropping it the day they announced the third-party api changes and came over to lemmy soon after. I could see the writing on the wall with that change.

So glad Boost exists for Lemmy.

You have an account on reddit, but you're not a bot? That's a banning!

Lol yeah... what a shit show